Cooking the Books: A Sloane Templeton Novel (2012)

by Bonnie S. Calhoun

  We followed the tall officer into the library while the barrel-chested officer walked through the house. Verlene didn't need to tell him where she had kept the book. The drawer was ripped from its rails in the desk and the contents were strewn on the floor.

  The officer turned 360 degrees while surveying the room. "They knew right where it was. There's nothing else disturbed in here."

  I looked around. Everything in the room was in the perfect order that was Verlene's signature. She always said everything had a place, and everything should be in its place. I wanted to scream at her. I told her about those miscreants she called her friends. But she was safe, and she looked too rattled at the moment to take any more grief.

  I heard voices behind us.

  I turned as two men entered the house. One was a tall Denzel Washington clone with a mustache. The other was a short blond guy carrying a large black case and wearing dark-blue cargo pants with a white polo shirt and a royal blue Windbreaker with "N.Y.C. Police Crime Scene Unit" stamped in white letters on the back of it.

  The barrel-chested officer spoke to the detective and pointed in our direction. The detective in turn motioned the CSU investigator into the library and entered behind him.

  Mr. Denzel clone approached us. He pulled a pen and notebook from the inside pocket of his dark-gray pin-striped suit as he spoke. "I'm Detective Griffen Justice. I've been advised that there has been a robbery."

  His voice was as smooth as Godiva chocolate. Okay, so I clearly have a fetish for chocolate. Good chocolate. What woman doesn't? It also sometimes included men, but this one didn't have enough hard body muscles to grab my attention. He just looked really ordinary in his pale gray shirt and gray, black, and white diagonally striped tie. But I liked his voice.

  I took Verlene by the arm. "This is my aunt, Verlene Buford, and three men violated her home and stole her property."

  Justice looked at me intently, almost too intently for comfort. I wondered if there was a booger under my nose or something. I ran my hand nonchalantly across my face just in case.

  He turned to Verlene and smiled. "Derby is interviewing an arson perp, so I told him I'd take the call."

  Verlene smiled demurely. Demurely! I didn't know my aunt Verlene had a demure bone in her body. I let go of her arm and pulled back my chin at her. "Excuse me? Derby?"

  I swore her face turned red for a split second.

  "Derby Weller is my friend, and a great detective."

  Aha, Derby Weller must be her friendly ticket-paying officer of the court. At least he was a detective. Not that I was a social snob or anything, but Verlene was kinda financially solvent because of Burt. I had to watch out for her welfare. I felt better that it wasn't just anybody off the streets, considering all the kinds of people she hung out with.

  Justice watched our exchange, the corners of his mouth ever so slightly raised. "Verlene, tell me what happened."

  "I have a feeling that we know the group that these perps came from." I put a hand on my hip.

  Justice smiled slowly.

  "What?" Was he laughing at me? "Did I say that right? They are perps right?"

  Justice nodded. He looked amused. I needed a mirror. I still thought I might have a booger.

  I turned to Verlene. "Did you tell anybody outside of Bebe's Beauty Salon?"

  "No," Verlene thought a second then shook her head and raised a hand. "I swear. No one else."

  "What did you tell them about the book?" A germ of an idea began to grow.

  Justice leaned back against the doorjamb and crossed his arms.

  I noticed his relaxed posture. "I'm sorry. Am I butting in?" I felt self-conscious that he was watching me.

  He grinned wide. "No, go right ahead. I'll listen. I can tell you're related to Verlene."

  Well, I'll be. He's enjoying this. Wait a minute. He's insinuating that I act like Verlene. Strike one, buddy. I turned back to Verlene. "You didn't answer the question."

  "I was thinking. I didn't tell anybody about the recipe. I just said the book was going to make me a lot of money when I sold it."

  I slapped my hand to my side. I could feel my gun. I pulled my hand away so Justice wouldn't see the bulge. "Okay, so they are going to try to sell the book. The only place they could do that is to a bookstore." I clapped my hands and looked at Justice. "If you alert all the local bookstores to be on the lookout for it, we can catch them red-handed."

  Justice pursed his lips and nodded his head. "I may have to get you a job as an investigator. That's very good deductive reasoning."

  I was feeling pretty proud. I glanced around to enjoy the approval. Verlene and Fifi were just staring at me. "What?"

  Fifi laughed. "Nothing. I'm just enjoying the view." She raised an eyebrow in Justice's direction.

  Verlene didn't say a word. She just smiled.

  "But that's a good idea, right?" I turned back to Justice. "If these perps are from outside the neighborhood, they could theoretically even come into my store with the book."

  The smile on Justice's face faded. "Do you own a bookstore in Fort Greene?"

  "Yes, over in the six hundred block of Fulton, Beckham's Books and Brew."

  He jotted in his book. "And your name would be?"

  "Sloane Templeton, and this is Fifi Tyler, my store manager."

  He reached in his breast pocket and handed both Fifi and me his card. "Be sure to call me if you get any leads. And I will get a BOLO out to the other local booksellers."

  "Okay, I know a little police lingo, but I don't know that one. What's a bowlow?" asked Verlene.

  "A BOLO is 'be on the lookout.' We use that when we are looking for people of interest."

  "These aren't people of interest. They are thieves." I wagged a finger.

  The corners of Justice's mouth turned up again ever so slightly. "They are people of interest until we are sure they are the actual thieves. They may pass the book off to someone else to sell."

  Sure, but that wouldn't stop me from giving those Mata Haris at the beauty shop the once over.

  Tracie Fellows, Verlene's friend from next door, came rushing in. "Verlene, I was down on the garden level when I heard the sirens. Are you all right?"

  Verlene nodded and proceeded to try to talk to Detective Justice and Tracie at the same time. Ah, back to normal. Minus a book, but at least Verlene's not all shaking and pale.

  Fifi looked at her watch. "We need to go if we're going to make our range time. We only get two hours."

  I touched Verlene's arm. "Are you going to be all right if I leave?"

  "Yes, honey, I'll be fine. Tracie's here with me."

  "If you need me, you have my cell number. I want you to meet me at the store in the morning at nine sharp. We have some stuff to do."

  "Miss Templeton, I hope you are not going to get actively involved in this case." Justice clicked his pen and returned it to his inside pocket.

  "What would give you that idea, Detective?" My voice rose too high. I could see the look in his eyes. He's not buying my innocent act. Rats!

  "Because you're related to Verlene." He raised an eyebrow.

  There he went with the Verlene thing again. If he kept that up, I was going to take a dislike to his sorry self. I put on my best indignant face. "I fail to see the resemblance."

  "That's because you're in there, and I'm out here. My view is very different."

  Okay, exit stage left. This act is done. I smiled. I hugged Verlene, turned on my heels, motioned to Fifi , and left.

  I'm sure it was not lost on him that I didn't ever really answer his question. But it was for the best. I would have had to figure out a whopper of a lie on the fly, and I wasn't good at deception.

  16

  WE DROVE BACK TO THE BOOKSTORE. WHEN FIFI AND I WALKED IN, WE were met by a group of blank stares. We explained the robbery, and Fifi announced we needed to get to the range or risk losing our time.

  I looked around at the crew. "How are we getting there?" I hadn't owned a car since I moved
back to Brooklyn. The subways were all too convenient for me to spend the extra bucks for personal transportation when I didn't stray far from the neighborhood. And I was really hoping that I didn't have to ride with Fifi "Andretti" again anytime soon.

  "Greta's son Levi always takes us in the Seniors Center van."Fifi turned toward the front window. "He's here now. Let's bust a bustle."

  I didn't want to bust anything. Sigh. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  We piled in and, I must admit, they were quite a merry bunch. I watched as we turned down South Portland, and made a right on Atlantic. I felt like a foreigner as they jabbered on about new holster designs and laser scopes. Truly frightening to think about one of them out at night with a gun. Not so much for their personal safety, as for that of their prey.

  The van turned left onto Hoyt, then took a sharp right onto Pacific and pulled up in front of the two-story brownstone. I'm not sure what I was expecting—maybe something more commercial, a country club–type setting, or even a landscaped lawn. But there was none of that. Just an ordinary building with an equally plain black-and-gold lettered sign filling the arch above the wide center door.

  We filed inside and the rest of the group immediately abandoned Fifi and me, heading through the glass door at the back. Fifi walked me to the scoring desk where a guy with a dark crewcut sucking on a toothpick popped his head up over the waist-high counter.

  "Hey, Fifi , you know those crazy old people are not supposed to be left alone back there."

  Fifi raised a hand. "I just wanted to stop and add Sloane Templeton here to our group. She was coming in with her mother, Camille Beckham, a few months ago."

  "Can I have your membership card, please?" He extended a hand toward me. I fished it out of my pocket as he nervously looked in the direction of the glass door.

  "Yeah, well don't leave them alone too long. You're their certified instructor and you know how much trouble they can get into. Ya know, I can't even schedule other people for your group's range time. People are afraid of them." The guy scribbled quickly on his forms.

  I glanced around while he added me to the roster. This was one of the last "outings" I had with Mom. We sat on the Naugahyde couch and she helped me fill out the paperwork. They took my picture, and my check for dues, and I was made a member in good standing of the Fort Greene Rod and Gun Club. Then we came back several times for my lessons. It never occurred to me that I would be coming here, and she'd be gone.

  I slid the card into my pocket as Fifi unlocked a wall locker and pulled out a gym bag. "The stuff you were using before was rental stuff. I guess it would be fitting if you use your mama's gear, sugah. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it. Now I'm glad I didn't."

  I followed Fifi through the glass door to the firing range.

  Rapid-firing shots filled my head with brain-rocking explosions. The smell reminded me of old fireworks. Large fans set into several wall vents stirred the ambient air back to breathable, but the acrid mustiness from decades of gunpowder lingered in the walls.

  Fifi opened the gym bag and handed me two lime green foam plugs that looked like suppositories. I looked at them, and then at her.

  "Squish them and put them in your ears," she yelled over the explosions. She rolled them in her fingers to demonstrate how to narrow the tubes to slide them into my ears. She thrust a headset that looked like earmuffs at me. "Then put these on."

  I dutifully inserted the plugs, wincing from the loud sounds ringing in my head, and pulled the headset over my ears, hearing blessed silence. Well, not quite, but it did go a great length in muffling the noise. Fifi did the same.

  She thrust safety goggles at me and pointed at my eyes. "Put 'em on."

  Sheesh, this was just like when I was a little kid and Mom dressed me up in a snowsuit to go outside. By the time I was dressed, I usually had to go to the bathroom. This time I didn't have to go. Praise the Lord for that favor.

  "Roll down those sleeves and close your shirt up to your neck." Fifi yelled again as she led me to a firing station. It looked like one long counter running across the length of the room but it was divided into six sections by walls. From there to the targets, it looked to be about 50 feet.

  "It's too hot to be all bundled up." I stepped back, which put me between her and the edge of the wall of Stavros Andropolis's lane.

  "Sloane! No!" Fifi reached out to snatch me back behind my side of the wall, but it was too late.

  Stavros squeezed off several rounds in rapid succession and hot brass casings flew in all directions. One of the hot shells skipped of fhis wall, onto the upper sleeve on my arm and slid toward the opening in my blouse. My hand flew up to brush it away. "Ouch!" The heat stung my little finger.

  Fifi pointed at me. "That's why I told you to close up that shirt. And for goodness sake, stay in your own lane. That's what the walls are for. "

  Stavros turned to me and lifted his ear cover. "I'm sorry. You should be covered better."

  I quickly saw the error of my ways and buttoned up my blouse before I wound up doing the hot-brass-in-the-bra dance.

  Fifi yelled over the constant discharges. "You need something to hold your hair back. It's going to stink from the gases in here. Don't you have a hat?"

  I felt my pockets. Nothing usable. I just had my hair done, and now I'm going to smell like a fireworks factory. A great eau de cologne for Andreas. He'll feel like he's hugging a gun. I'd never even broached the subject with him. He's so sophisticated. He might not like me playing around with weapons. I probably should bring it up before I scared him with the stupid gun. I was beginning to wonder if all this was worth it.

  Greta Feinstein watched us from her lane, the second down on my left. She laid her gun on the shelf in front of her and found an elastic band in her huge quilted bag for me to tie my hair back. She handed it to me, then held her other hand to the button for the electric target carrier.

  I slipped the colored elastic around my large wad of micro braids and watched the paper target zip toward Greta with tight groupings of holes in the head and chest. The range was marked off in ten-foot increments. She had plugged that target from fifty feet away. Man, oh man, remind me never to mess with her in a dark alley.

  Before I could protest messing up my do, Fifi reached in her bag of tricks, pulled out a ball cap, and jammed it on my head. Maybe I would end up resembling that little kid in the snowsuit after all. I looked around. Our posse looked like professionals. Hats, headsets, goggles. I had stepped into an alternate universe where the oldsters were as capable as Dead- Eye Dick and Annie Oakley, and I epitomized Barney Fife.

  "Let me see your shooting stance." Fifi moved away from me and stuck her hands in her back pockets.

  I gawked at her. "What does that mean?" I did a smarty-pants Dirty Harry stance and wiggled my backside. Fifi cut her eyes at me. I wanted to laugh, but she looked dead serious. Sheesh, she has no sense of humor about this certified instructor stuff. I must remember to behave or risk getting clocked.

  "Watch." Fifi positioned her legs and feet. "You need to have good balance to absorb shock. What you're shooting now will have almost no recoil, but you need to get in the habit until you're better versed with various weapons." She rocked back and forth.

  For the love of the saints! All I wanted to do was learn how to handle this one itty-bitty gun, and now she's signing me up for an entire armory.

  Fifi snapped her fingers to get my attention. She demonstrated how I should hold my arms and the weapon. Then she raised my arms and put them in the right positions. I felt awkward, but not out of place. I matched her step for step and arm for arm. She made me repeat the movements a dozen times until I could do them without thinking first.

  She raised the weapon to demonstrate how to line up the sight on the target. "Never jerk on the trigger, just squeeze slowly." She completed the movement and the weapon discharged. I jumped back. Fifi turned to look at me. "Sugah, you need to get over being so skittish."

  "It-t startled me." I gue
ss I didn't expect it to be so loud for something so small. I put my finger across my nostrils. I could smell an acrid mix of gun oil and fireworks. "It smells like that gun oil you have with that kit in the stockroom at the store."

  "Because I cleaned it for you this morning. You said you had dropped it. I didn't know if it picked up any grit. I'll show you how to clean it yourself this week." She pressed on the conveyor button and the target zipped toward us.

  She pulled me into the stall and handed me the gun. "Come, show me what you've got, girlfriend." She clipped a fresh paper target to the line and zipped it down the range. Hmm, maybe I need glasses. It looked so small that far away. I squinted at it. It wasn't blurry, just small.

  "Does it need to be that far away?"

  "Yes," Fifi chuckled. "The better you get at shooting something really tiny, the easier it will be to shoot something big." She looked very proud of that statement. It gave me pause. What world was I in?

  I hesitated but stepped up to the opening, spread my legs slightly, and took bead on the target. I unstanced. "Do I need to say 'fore' or something before I shoot?"

  Fifi doubled over laughing. "No, sugah, just shoot the target."

  I restanced, proud of the two new words I'd created for my vocabulary. "Hey, I created new words for these positions—"

  "Just shoot the gun." Fifi looked impatient.

  I guess I had stalled as long as I was going to get away with. I restanced, looked at the target, raised my gun, closed my eyes, and squeezed off a single round. A tiny jerk in my hand, and then the smell of fireworks and a bare hint of the oil.

  "How's that?"

  Fifi squinted at the target. "I have no idea how you did that with your eyes closed, but you actually clipped the edge of the target."

  "I hit it?" A smile spread across my face. Hey maybe this wasn't so bad after all.

  "Yeah, but you have to keep your eyes open, sugah." Fifi shook her head at me. "You can't hit something you can't see."

  "It's instinct. I don't want to see what I'm shooting."

  "Sloane! It's a piece of paper."

  "But it could be a real person someday."